Police Scotland are under fire for a worrying tweet advising citizens to prepare a grab bag with emergency supplies for immediate use, sparking wild speculation, meme-making and understandable concern among the masses.
“September is preparedness month. Emergencies can happen at any time and it’s recommended to have a #GrabBag ready containing essential items including medication, copies of important documents, food/water, torch, radio and other personal items,” the police tweeted as part of their ‘30 days 30 ways’ campaign.
The anxiety-inducing advice proposed packing a bag with food, water, and medication, as well as a pen and notepad, phone charger, whistle, and first aid kit. However, a Sunday morning may not have been the best time to urge people to prepare for some undisclosed disaster headed their way, judging by the reactions online, most of which centered around a single theme: “Do they know something we don’t?”
“What emergencies do you envisage? Brexit? War? Civil disturbance? Flood? Pestilence? Nuclear accident? Martial Law?”wrote one user, while another offered a variety of betting odds on what the impending doom might be: “Asteroid 4/1 Tsunami 8/1 Nuclear war 14/1 Alien invasion 22/1 Zombie Apocalypse 33/1 No deal Brexit 1000/1.”
Others adopted a more tongue-in-cheek approach.
One commenter quipped: “Some advice please on #grabbag regarding ‘seasonal clothing’. I have packed some fancy dress for Hallowe’en and then a Santa suit for Christmas. Will that be enough do you think?”
Alien invasion, zombie apocalypse, and calamity in the form a Boris Johnson-led Brexit were all recurring themes as Scots piled on the police for such a needlessly panic-inducing tweet.
Some, however, called for calm (sincerely) and claimed not to see the big fuss while humble-bragging about their multitude of emergency preparedness plans.
The whole kerfuffle reportedly stems from an initiative initially introduced by the US Department of Homeland Security that has been widely picked up by various institutions and public bodies across the UK.
The timing couldn’t be worse, however, as the tweet only added to online speculation that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson might declare a national emergency in order to force through a no-deal Brexit, effectively weaponizing the Civil Contingencies Act of 2004 against his political opponents.
The Federal Reserve has been using its central bank powers in an attempt to tank the economy to blame President Trump and manipulate the 2020 election outcome, according to CIA whistleblower Kevin Shipp.
“He [Trump] has got the Fed shaking in their boots. When the Fed gags its board of directors and its members, that is not good,” Shipp said on “USA Watchdog” with Greg Hunter on Saturday.
“Something not good is going on. Perhaps they are bringing the interest rates down to zero. Perhaps it’s the fact we are entering into, not only U.S., but a global recession. So, they have put the lid on any comments coming out, and I think they have done it for a reason that is concerning…”
“Trump is atwar with the Fed, and the Fed has put a lid on all its people. It’s a gag order to keep its people from talking about what the Fed plans to do,” he continued.
“I think it is tied to an upcoming global recession, and we may see quantitative easing (money printing) rates go to zero, and they don’t want the President or the public to know what they are about to do,” Shipp added.
The Fed’s attempts to ruin Trump are obvious given how it behaved during Obama’s presidency, such as its excessive money-printing policies and holding interest rates at 0% for most of Obama’s tenure.
“So, it is apparent the Fed waited until Trump was elected to start hammering and pounding on the economy, which apparently they did not want to do under Obama,” Shipp said. “Can you raise the suspicion that the Fed is against Trump or that the Fed is trying to take the credit for the economy away from Trump? I think that appears to be entirely possible…”
“Trump has said it exactly right, it’s a war between Trump and the Federal Reserve, which, of course, is not federal and it has no reserves…
Shipp said that Trump is aware of the Fed’s moves and is correctly planning to shift blame to the Fed for any economic correction or collapse because it is the progenitor of America’s boom/bust cycles.
“In my view, I think that Trump is convinced that the Fed is going to try to destroy the advances in the economy to make 2020 less possible for re-election and actually manipulate the political landscape,” Shipp said.
“I think Trump is clearly and wisely aware of what they are doing…I think Trump thinks the Fed is going to manipulate the 2020 election and make any recession look like Trump’s fault and not the Fed’s fault.”
“God bless Donald Trump because he is the first President to call out the Fed like he is doing,” Shipp added. “Trump has been right all along.”
Trump called out the “very selfish” Fed on Monday, saying they should lower interest rates back down because the dollar is so strong thats it’s actually weakening the global economy.
In a world first, Facebook has agreed to hand over the identification data of French users suspected of hate speech on its platform to judges, France’s minister for digital affairs Cedric O said on Tuesday.
O, whose father is South Korean, is one of French President Emmanuel Macron‘s earliest followers, and has been influential in shaping the president’s thinking on Big Tech as an advisor at the Elysee palace in the first two years of Macron’s presidency.
The decision by the world’s biggest social media network comes after successive meetings between Zuckerberg and Macron, who wants to take a leading role globally on the regulation of hate speech and the spread of false information online.
So far, Facebook has cooperated with French justice on matters related to terrorist attacks and violent acts by transferring the IP addresses and other identification data of suspected individuals to French judges who formally demanded it.
All French citizens are to be treated as terrorists now if they hold the wrong opinions.
Following a meeting between Nick Clegg, Facebook’s head of global affairs, and O last week, the social media company has extended this cooperation to hate speech.
“This is huge news, it means that the judicial process will be able to run normally,” O told Reuters in an interview. “It’s really very important, they’re only doing it for France.”
O, who said he had been in close contact with Clegg over the last few days on the issue, said Facebook’s decision was the result of an ongoing conversation between the internet giant and the French administration.
Since his nomination as minister in March, O has made the fight against hate speech online a key priority through regular contacts with Facebook’s top executives, including founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Buzzfeed reported in March that Macron had begun working with Facebook to “solve” it’s “deep-rooted anti-Semitism problem.”
France — home to the world’s third-largest Jewish population — is in the middle of what Macron has described as being the worst period of anti-Semitism since World War II, and much of it is playing out online.
Calling for a “collegial approach” to regulation last November, Macron announced what he called an “unprecedented field experiment” with Zuckerberg to take French officials behind the scenes of content moderation process. After reviewing the tools Facebook uses to evaluate and take down offensive and violent content, Macron said, policymakers would work with Facebook to “jointly develop specific and concrete proposals to fight offensive and hate content.”
[…] Just after Macron announced his partnership with Zuckerberg last November, the Yellow Vest protests exploded onto streets across France. The movement tapped into deep-seated anger at economic stagnation among the French middle class, but it transformed into a political force through Facebook groups that were also hotbeds of conspiracy theories, anti-Semitic abuse, and anti-vax misinformation.
[…] The Yellow Vest movement helped unleashed a new wave of anti-Semitic abuse. President Macron was called a “whore of the Jews” by commenters who seized on his work for the Rothschild Bank. People in the Yellow Vest groups also shared videos by Dieudonné, a comedian who has been convicted of many crimes over the past 15 years, including advocating terrorism and denying the Holocaust, yet still has a page on Facebook. Dieudonné has become close to figures around France’s historic far-right party, the National Front — recently renamed the National Rally — many of whose supporters joined the Yellow Vest protests.
ROME — Pope Francis warned of disastrous consequences if humanity does not immediately react to the threat of climate change, since the world has reached a “critical moment” and there is no time to waste.
“Dear friends, time is running out!” the pope told a group of participants in a Vatican-sponsored conference on energy transition Friday. “We cannot afford the luxury of waiting for others to come forward or of prioritizing short-term economic benefits. The climate crisis requires decisive action from us, here and now.”
Despite the pontiff’s frequent denunciation of a “politics of fear,” he seemed determined to paint as frightening a picture as possible of an impending climate apocalypse in order to incite people to action.
This conference “takes place at a critical moment,”Francis said. “Today’s ecological crisis, especially climate change, threatens the very future of the human family, and this is not an exaggeration. For too long we have collectively ignored the fruits of scientific analysis, and catastrophic predictions can no longer be viewed with contempt and irony.”
The pope’s words Friday went beyond sounding a general alarm and scorning climate-change skeptics. They also urged specific political action, most notably regarding penalties for carbon usage such as a carbon tax.
“A carbon pricing policy is essential if humanity wants to use the resources of creation wisely,” he said. “The failure to manage carbon emissions has produced a huge debt that will now have to be repaid with interest from those who come after us.”
The cost of carbon usage must be paid here and now by those who use it, and not deferred for future generations to cover, he proposed.
“Our use of common environmental resources can be considered ethical only when the social and economic costs of their use are recognized in a transparent manner and are fully sustained by those who use them, rather than by other populations or future generations,” he said.
The pope reiterated the popular belief that “the effects on the climate will be catastrophic if we exceed the 1.5ºC threshold outlined in the Paris Agreement goals,” for which we have “only a little over a decade.”
“In the face of a climatic emergency, we must take appropriate measures, in order to avoid committing a grave injustice towards the poor and future generations. We must act responsibly well considering the impact of our actions in the short and long term,” he said.
“Future generations are soon to inherit a very ruined world,” the pontiff stressed. “Our children and grandchildren should not have to pay the cost of the irresponsibility of our generation.”
Appearing to take a page from AOC’s Green New Deal, Francis expressed his conviction that an energy transition from fossil fuels to a low-carbon society “can generate new employment opportunities, reduce inequality, and increase the quality of life for those affected by climate change.”
Today “a radical energy transition is needed to save our common home,” he warned. “There is still hope and the time remains to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, provided that there is prompt and resolute action.”
What is going on with the unending Brexit drama, the aftershocks of Donald Trump’s election and the “yellow vests” protests in France?
What drives the growing estrangement of southern and eastern Europe from the European Union establishment? What fuels the anti-EU themes of recent European elections and the stunning recent Australian re-election of conservatives?
Put simply, the middle classes are revolting against Western managerial elites. The latter group includes professional politicians, entrenched bureaucrats, condescending academics, corporate phonies and propagandistic journalists.
What are the popular gripes against them?
One, illegal immigration and open borders have led to chaos. Lax immigration policies have taxed social services and fueled multicultural identity politics, often to the benefit of boutique leftist political agendas.
Two, globalization enriched the cosmopolitan elites who found worldwide markets for their various services. New global markets and commerce meant Western nations outsourced, offshored and ignored their own industries and manufacturing (or anything dependent on muscular labor that could be replaced by cheaper workers abroad).
Three, unelected bureaucrats multiplied and vastly increased their power over private citizens. The targeted middle classes lacked the resources to fight back against the royal armies of tenured regulators, planners, auditors, inspectors and adjusters who could not be fired and were never accountable.
Enlarge ImageA Yellow Vest Pro-Brexit Protestor seen with an EU flag modified with a Swastika during a rally at Trafalgar Square.Getty Images
Four, the new global media reached billions and indoctrinated rather than reported.
Five, academia, rather than focusing on education, became politicized as a shrill agent of cultural transformation — while charging more for less learning.
Six, utopian social planning increased housing, energy, and transportation costs.
One common gripe framed all these diverse issues: The wealthy had the means and influence not to be bothered by higher taxes and fees, or to avoid them altogether. Not so much the middle classes, who lacked the clout of the virtue-signaling rich and the romance of the distant poor.
In other words, elites never suffered the firsthand consequences of their own ideological fiats.
Green policies were aimed at raising fees on, and restricting the use of, carbon-based fuels. But proposed green belt-tightening among the hoi polloi was not matched by cutbacks in their second and third homes, overseas vacations, luxury cars, private jets and high-tech appurtenances.
In education, government directives and academic hectoring about admissions quotas and ideological indoctrination likewise targeted the middle classes but not the elite. The micromanagers of Western public schools and universities often preferred private academies and rigorous traditional training for their own children.
Elites relied on old-boy networks to get their own kids into colleges. Diversity administrators multiplied at universities while indebted students borrowed more money to pay for them.
In matters of immigration, the story was much the same. Western elites encouraged the migration of indigent, unskilled and often poorly educated foreign nationals who would ensure that government social programs — and the power of the elites themselves — grew.
The champions of open borders made sure that such influxes did not materially affect their own neighborhoods, schools and privileged way of life.
Elites masked their hypocrisy by virtue-signaling their disdain for the supposedly xenophobic, racist or nativist middle classes. Yet the non-elite have experienced firsthand the impact on social programs, schools and safety from sudden, massive and often illegal immigration from Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia into their communities.
As for trade, few still believe in “free” trade when it remains so unfair. Why didn’t elites extend to China their same tough-love lectures about global warming or about breaking the rules of trade, copyrights and patents?
The middle classes became nauseated by elites’ constant trashing of their culture, history and traditions, including the tearing down of statues, the Trotskyizing of past heroes, the renaming of public buildings and streets and, for some, the tired and empty whining about “white privilege.”
If Western nations were really so bad, and so flawed at their founding, why were millions of non-Westerners risking their lives to reach Western soil?
How was it that elites themselves had made so much money, had gained so much influence and had enjoyed such material bounty and leisure from such a supposedly toxic system — benefits that they were unwilling to give up despite their tired moralizing about selfishness and privilege?
In the next few years, expect more grass-roots demands for the restoration of the value of citizenship. There will be fewer middle-class apologies for patriotism and nationalism. The non-elite will become angrier about illegal immigration, demanding a return to the idea of measured, meritocratic, diverse and legal immigration.
Because elites have no answers to popular furor, the anger directed at them will only increase until they give up — or finally succeed in their grand agenda of a nondemocratic, all-powerful Orwellian state.
The International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank do not want Trump to make America great again.
by Shane Trejo
Two of the most powerful international bankers in the world are teaming up in a joint effort to halt President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ trade policies.
Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank (ECB) and Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), are urging Trump to abandon his trade war and return to the status quo preferred by globalist financiers.
“We meet at a moment when support for global cooperation and multilateral solutions is waning,” Lagarde said at the 8th ECB conference for the central, eastern and south-eastern European (CESEE) nations on Wednesday.
“Global growth has been subdued for more than six years and the largest economies in the world are putting up, or threatening to put up, new trade barriers. And this might be the beginning of something else, which might affect us all in a more broad way,” she added.
Lagarde also warned: “These troubling developments will create headwinds for all, but certainly for the CESEE growth model, a model that has relied on openness and integration.”
Draghi also forecast doom unless Trump submitted to China, abandoned his nationalistic policies, and let he and his fellow bankster cronies go back to running the global economy.
“Global trade has faced headwinds in recent years as trade-restrictive measures have outpaced liberalising measures,” Draghi said.
“The central and eastern European business model has become vulnerable to shocks to international trade and financial conditions,” he added, warning of potential ill effects of Trump threatening to hike tariffs on European autos.
“The effect of tariffs could be amplified, as a large share of goods cross borders multiple times during the production process,” Draghi said.
“The main long-term challenge is moving towards a more balanced growth and financing model, which is more reliant on domestic innovation and on higher investment spending than it has been so far,” he added.
Regardless of the fear-mongering of the international bankers, President Trump remains undaunted in his resolve to cut China down to size and approve the standing of the U.S. in the world.
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